Fox Point Prepares for 'Sleeping Giant' Emerald Ash Borer

Fox Point Forester John Gall said he believes the arrival of , an invasive insect from Asia that kills Ash trees, is inevitable and could have already snuck in under the radar.

"It's a sleeping giant," Gall said. "The problem with emerald ash borer is once you find it, it's already been there for three years, and you better have started doing something about it when you find it. That's what we're trying to do here."

In an effort to mitigate the devastating effect the little green bugs can have on wooded communities like Fox Point, 129 of the sickest ash trees in the public right-of-way, village buildings and parks were removed in October. Gall said they will plant 30 replacement trees of a diverse array of species this spring for those that were in the most valued locations.

Gall conducted the project with $28,000 from the village, matched by a grant from the state Department of Natural Resources, by contracting out to Voss' Treemendous Tree Service after a bidding process. 

With more grant-matched funds, Gall plans to treat 111 healthy ash trees this spring to prevent the bugs from getting to them. By injecting the soil with imidacloprid, the solution gets into the tree and kills emerald ash borers who injest it.

Gall is applying for another matching grant of $20,000 from the DNR to continue the program through 2012.

"It’s a matter of staying diligent and not sticking your head in the sand," he said. "This community is unique because of it’s forest, and unfortunately a large percentage of the forest is ash."

Gall said that, in a way, the village brought the current conundrum on itself by planting so many ash trees when dutch elm disease brought down most of Fox Point's elms in the 1960s.

"They got overused; we didn’t learn our lesson from planting a monoculture," Gall said.

This time around, Gall is making an extra effort to replace ash trees with a diverse spread of species to avoid future wipeouts.

At their meeting Thursday, members of the Fox Point Tree Commission supported Gall's progress, but raised concerns about how to address the many ash trees on private property.

"We can talk about preemptively removing a tree, but we’re talking about public property— five percent of the village," Judy Shirley, member of the tree commission, said. "Homeowners are going to experience a tremendous hazard with their tree falling on their house, or their neighbor’s tree falling on their house. To me it seems like a more blooming disaster."

However, Trustee F.R. Dengel said it would be tricky to get involved as a government in trees that are on private property, legally and financially.

"We don’t have enough money to help every resident with this problem," Dengel said. "It will be difficult handling it on village property. The most important part is educating them about what they can do for their property."

Gall has posted additional information about recognizing and treating emerald ash borer to the village website.